Google Maps and Flight Planning
June 29th, 2005Google has just made an announcement that could have a profound effect on the resources available for flight planning online: they have created a free API (application programming interface) to Google Maps.
The flying geeks who read this blog will understand the implications of this immediately; for the rest of you, it means that any web site (any free one, anyway) can now reliably build web applications integrating Google’s maps and satellite photos. Do you want to see a scrollable, zoomable satellite photo of British Columbia with victor airways overlaid? See an outline of the newest TFR on top of a detailed street map of New York? Web site designers with only the most basic LAMP and Javascript skills can now deliver sites that do that with days or weeks, rather than months or years of work, and people with advanced skills — Paul Tomblin knows I’m talking about him — will be able to do much, much more. With wireless Internet in the cockpit, we could even have live Google maps with weather overlays on a tablet PC in the our cockpits, and laugh at glass-cockpit pilots for their primitive technology.
Seriously, expect to see some interesting aviation-related applications appear in the next few months. I’ll link to them from my blog if I hear about them.
June 29th, 2005 at 19:50:27-0400
Way to put the pressure on, David. I’m already way late on delivering the airspace generator for FlightMaster, and I’m still having memory problems with my new web host. Never mind the “NavWiki” that I haven’t even started yet.
July 1st, 2005 at 10:07:35-0400
This is great… I’m in the process of putting together my own EFB so I’m glad to see things like this. You can follow my progress in my blog if anyone is interested… I’m still evaluating software and screens. Do many airports out there have wifi these days? I don’t believe any of the ones around Charlotte, NC do…
September 19th, 2005 at 10:35:21-0400
[...] Here’s a web application that mashes the FAA ATA 100 airport/airspace database with the Google maps public API: [...]
December 8th, 2005 at 15:42:36-0500
Why is it necessary to have internet in the cockpit? Why not have aviation/street/sat maps on your laptop and use a gps system to update your position on the map in real time. This would seem possible to do now.
January 4th, 2006 at 07:34:34-0500
[...] When the Google Maps API was announced, David Megginson publically challenged me and other programmers to come up with a decent flight planning application that used it. Well, it’s not here yet, but RunwayFinder - a flight planning tool for pilots is getting closer. At least it’s a decent substitute for the “Nearest Airports” search in AirNav - you put in an airport id and it shows the ones in the neighbourhood as well. Too bad the METARs are hours out of date. [...]